I realized that if, for some terrible reason, I was unable to find a job for the summer, I was going to need something to keep me busy so I don't go stir-crazy being in Farmtown, USA. So, now that summer is here and I am still unemployed, I've begun working on some of them. My list includes things like stripping down the dresser my parents gave to Opha and me and refinishing it, sewing new curtains for our apartment in the fall, and creating a quilt out of the t-shirts from my sorority and Dance Marathon activities in college. All three of these are things that I have never really attempted before (I've sewn a few things here and there, but never made curtains or a quilt, and I've never tried stripping and refinishing furniture) and will give me a finished product for something I can use at our apartment and in the future.
This week, I started working on the quilt. It's not done yet, but it's going better than I had expected! I cut up 35 t-shirts from various events in Phi Mu and Dance Marathon that I collected throughout college. I have a t-shirt from DM's 11-15 (2006-2010), the core committee's I've been on, my Swimmy shirt, and my steering polo from DM, and various recruitment shirts including the one I wore when I went through formal recruitment in 2005, my bid day shirt, shirts from formals and socials, and even a senior bar crawl shirt from Phi Mu. I really like the idea of turning these shirts into a quilt because it's not like I'm going to be wearing them anytime soon (sadly, half of them are size small from my thinner days and I couldn't fit into them even if I wanted to) but I don't want to throw them out, either--they are tied to too many memories. Rather than throw them into a box in the back of my closet or in storage, I thought I would put them to better use in a way that I can still keep all the memories close by. It took me 3 hours, but I cut out all 35 shirts and then figured out what pattern I wanted to put them in. I've spent the past 2 days sewing strips of panels together (which was definitely interesting, since I got into roughly 4 different fights with the sewing machine, and which is why I gave up sewing today after sewing together only one strip of panels... if the sewing machine and I were Facebook friends, I would totally block them right now!) and still have more to go, but I'm pretty impressed with how well it's coming so far.
Here's a picture of it before I started sewing it together:
It's going to be big enough to cover our queen-size bed when it's done! I'm impressed with myself, that's for sure--not only am I working on getting in shape and eating healthier, but I'm also working on improving my crafting skills, too!
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